


familiar and ill-advised

by riverbed



Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, F/F, Getting Back Together, Past Relationship(s), breaking up, burr isn't good at Feelings, noncon tag is there for a past thing involving a power imbalance, they're both girls
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-08-14
Updated: 2016-08-14
Packaged: 2018-08-08 18:48:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,432
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7769050
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/riverbed/pseuds/riverbed
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Two years after she dropped out of Columbia Burr finds herself back in New York, numb and floating through her day-to-day routine. She literally runs into Alex after having more or less successfully compartmentalized the failure of their relationship since the day she caused it.</p><p>Back into her life comes a whirlwind of stuff she hasn't dealt with, and lo and behold - Alex has some stuff she hasn't dealt with, herself, more so than she'd ever let on.</p>
            </blockquote>





	familiar and ill-advised

**Author's Note:**

> lesbian chapfic time
> 
> faceclaims: hamilton is lindsey morgan and burr is aja naomi king. thanks

This isn’t Burr’s scene.

She’d only agreed to come, after all, because it was for Maria’s birthday, but Maria has long since left with her regular hookup so Burr doesn’t know why they’re all still here. She swirls her cocktail around, her third one, but she doesn’t feel like drinking any more. She licks the tip of her finger and brings some salt to her mouth instead - she feels a bit shocked into soberness at the bitter taste on her tongue.

But she’s still tired. She can’t stop thinking about all the work she’d hoped to finish today that she hadn’t; her mind is racing with ideas, none of which she can organize enough to make them make much sense. She sighs, slamming her palm flat on the table with more force than she’d meant to as she nudges Hercules to let her out of the booth. He leans down to her so she can hear him - “Where you going?” he says into her ear, and his breath stinks like liquor. She winces. 

“Need some air,” she shouts, above the music. This place always has a live band on weekends, and if Burr were feeling more relaxed she might be dancing. As it stands, the people who are crowding up the space cleared between the tables just annoy her - they’re impeding her progress to the door. She dodges stray arms and clumsy grinding until she finally finds her way to the front of the room, near the bar, and she hunches her shoulders as she ducks between the crowd and the few people seated on the barstools. One girl, joking around with her date, backs up suddenly and knocks right into her. Burr winces and cradles her own upper arm; it’s tender. She can tell a bruise will come up there tomorrow.

“Sorry,” she says unenthusiastically just as the other girl turns around. She looks up and -

Well, she hasn’t changed. She looks young and wide-eyed and eager, though even in the unreliable light Aaron can tell she’s tanned. Her hair is half-back, barely contained by the front portions clipped back from her face - Aaron can remember her crisscrossing pairs of pins in an effort to fight it down before class. Standing in front of Aaron’s vanity, in her underwear and a crop top without a bra. Pulling on Burr’s shorts, their stretch tested around her thighs. Room a mess, their clothes in mixed piles as if neither of them had left the room in weeks.

Burr shakes herself of the memory to focus, and she puts out her hand and Alex shakes it, cordially, without missing a beat. Neither of them say anything, at first - it’s John Laurens who breaks the silence. “Hi, Aaron!” he says brightly, clapping her on the shoulder. He’s drunk and his palm lands hard, and Burr winces a bit - she doesn’t need bruises on both arms, and John is stronger than he looks; he was the best batter on Columbia’s team. Aaron remembers too-loud parties at his frat house that she’d attended for Alex’s sake, enjoying herself more in the company of the pet rabbit she’d found one of his brothers to have than with the other human attendees. They’d made a game of it, eventually; Aaron would slip away, and Alex would come hunt her down, find her upstairs and kiss her breathless on a bunk.

But now they’re older. Burr tries to remember that it’s just two years older but they’re still older. She should know better. She knows better. She -

“Are you headed out?” Alex says, and hearing her voice melts down the joints in Aaron’s knees, makes her hand, which is still held tight in Alex’s, feel sweaty. She tries to pull it back but Alex hauls her closer, under the guise of bringing them closer for a conversation, Aaron knows. She tries to regulate her breathing.

“Need some air,” she repeats, but her voice is so uncharacteristically soft she doesn’t think Alex could have possibly heard. But she nods - Aaron forgot how good she always was at reading lips. She leans up to yell something in John’s ear and then nods to Aaron, as if telling her to lead the way. Feeling sort of dumbstruck, she does, and she fights down the impulse to yank her hand away when Alex grabs her wrist.  _ She’s probably just trying to keep track of me, _ she thinks, but Alex’s slim fingers around her wrist feel so familiar and it only makes her want to run and run, faster and faster, til she’s so worn out that she’s calm - she hasn’t felt this, this buzzing, this thrumming, since that last night, the night before she’d woken up before dawn and packed all her things into her cousin’s truck.  _ Going home for the summer, and I don’t know if I’ll be back, _ she’d said - Alex hadn’t cried. She’d sat on the corner of the bed and watched, silent, for once.

_ I need out, _ she’d told her, and  _ I’m sorry. New York isn’t my place. _

_ Okay,  _ Alex had said.  _ Okay.  _ She caught Aaron as she walked past with her final bag of various scarves and sweaters, grabbed her wrist and brought it to her mouth and kissed the vein running under her skin, slow and soft.

Aaron left. Aaron sat in the truck and pushed her face into the one item of Alex’s she’d been able to bring herself to shove among her own things - a wool cardigan, navy blue. Alex wore it when she was cold; she was always cold.

_ Now she’ll be cold, and she’ll miss me, _ Aaron remembers thinking. Now she’s burning hot even as the December wind whips against her face. She huddles into her oversized scarf, wishing she were at home with some hot chocolate and her dog in her lap. Or asleep. She’d give anything to be asleep right now and not facing down her ex-whatever-they-were, without the preparation required to deal with her. Alex had always been a handful.

“Are you gonna get mad at me if I smoke?” she asks, just as Burr has managed to convince herself she may have mellowed out.

She winces, physically recoils. It’s not a kind thing to say right off the bat. One of their biggest points of contention, but at least she hadn’t brought up the other instead. “Yes,” she concedes, and slumps against the wall next to Alex as she lights her cigarette. She still smokes the same ones, though she’s never smelled like them - even in the crisp bite of the outside air she smells like cinnamon and mint. Burr’s nose itches and she scrubs the heel of her hand over it.

Alex’s breath is visible in the near-freezing air. She inhales half of her cigarette in 30 seconds and stamps it out, coughing. Aaron knows this means she’s on the verge of a panic attack, though she hides it well.

“So. You’re back.”

Aaron swallows a whine. She doesn’t want to have this conversation - she doesn’t want to be having any conversation, actually, she’d come out here for peace and quiet, some kind of respite from the driving music and the onset of a pounding headache. She can tell she’s in for it anyway. “I’ve been back,” she says. “I come to this place all the time.”

“Really.” Alex doesn’t phrase it like a question. She fiddles with the clasp on her purse, as if going for another cigarette, but she thinks better of it. “It doesn’t seem like you.”

Burr scoffs. Leave it to Alex to point out the obvious. The cold is grounding her, in a strange way. She can think now. She can face this. “I’m here with friends. From work.”

“Where are you working?”

“Consulting firm.” Aaron bites back the bitterness she feels at saying it, but Alex laughs before she can brace herself for it.

But Hamilton doesn’t go for it, even though she could. “I see,” is all she says. She ducks around the corner of the building without another word, and Aaron follows her, confused. As soon as she clears it, Alex is on her, spinning her around to slam her against the freezing brick wall. She buries her face in her neck, biting at the thin skin just behind her ear, and Aaron knows what’s happening. She knows how Alex prides herself in a successful conquest, and she knows that now she is one.

*

It’s distressingly easy, and intoxicating. Everything she remembers about Alex still holds true. Skating a hand up her side still elicits the same shuddering, and Burr has no trouble finding the spot on Alex’s chin that makes her groan lightly, a noise barely let out on a breath. She compares it to memory, and then files it away before doubling down her efforts. Alex has her own hoodie off and Aaron’s blouse unbuttoned, the back zipper on her skirt halfway down, when she pushes at her shoulder.

“I don’t want to do this tonight,” she says.

Aaron blinks at her. “What?”

“I don’t. Want. To do this.” Alex squirms out from under her and off the bed. She slips her sweatshirt over her head and it makes her hair frizz out with static. Aaron has the urge to reach out and run her fingers through it, but Alex is too far away.

“I don’t understand.” Aaron feels angry, and then she feels terrible for being angry. She shouldn’t feel cheated like this; it’s none of her business what Alex does or doesn’t want to do. It had felt good to hold her, more like coming home than Aaron was entirely okay with, if she’s being honest with herself.

Alex is looking her up and down. “It’s like looking in a mirror,” she says, corner of her mouth curled up in a cruel smirk. Aaron looks down at herself; she’s sitting with her legs dangling over the side of the bed, not quite tall enough to plant her feet on the floor. Alex’s bed is high off the ground. She remembers Alex slouching on the corner of the stripped dorm bed and suddenly feels very exposed; she reaches for her blouse, doing up the fastenings as quickly as she can. Her hands fumble over the tiny pearl buttons more than she’d like.

With them both dressed, Alex comes over and sits next to her, close but not touching, with enough of a gap between them to give Burr an out. “Are you angry?” Burr asks. She’s still trying to understand why Alex stopped and she hates herself for it. And her voice has gone again; she’s not proud of how quiet she’s been tonight.

Alex inclines her head, looks up at Burr from the side. “I don’t think I was ever angry about what you think.”

What does that mean? “What does that mean?”

Hamilton sighs loudly, a little fondly, if Aaron had to place it. “I was pissed that you dropped out more than anything else.” She smoothes a section of the bedcovers down with her hand. Aaron aches to reach out and grab it, squeeze it tightly. She clenches her fist instead.

“I mean, like, I get it,” Alex continues. “I get feeling out of place. I get - not being able to do it.” She pauses, shakes her head. Yeah. Aaron remembers. “But you never talked to me, you never let me know what was going on. We could’ve talked, we could’ve figured something out.”

Yeah. Talk. Like Alex likes to do. Aaron isn’t good at that; she’s never been good at that. Besides, what would she have said?  _ I feel like I’m drowning in air pollution, I hate this city, I hate all my friends, I even hate you, a little bit.  _ Aaron had missed home, but then she missed New York, and she missed Alex, and she came back, pathetically hoping she’d find Alex again. But now that she has, she feels more lost than ever before. She longs to go back to whatever they’d had but she knows she tanked that chance the day she left.

Aaron flops back on the bed and breathes out hard under the sinking weight pressing down on her chest. Alex turns over and lays down on her stomach beside her, on her elbows, looking at her quizzically. Aaron takes a few more deep breaths and steels herself before she finally says, “You wanna talk now?”

Alex doesn’t say anything, but she reaches out and strokes Aaron’s hair, absently, like she doesn’t know she’s doing it. She doesn’t even hum in thoughtful encouragement, something Aaron finds herself missing.

They talk anyway, or Aaron talks, about the enclosing feelings of isolation, about the big city making her feel small, about how it all still applied but she’d just learned to deal with it over time, and Alex listens. When she gets to the part about Alex’s stuff and how it had all built up on her, made their relationship hostile, Alex pays her a mournful look, and Aaron knows. She knows she should have talked about it, given Alex the opportunity to make it right. She at least should have been there for her to help her through it. She can’t bring herself to explain how guilty she feels over blaming Alex for the thing with Washington, since she had obviously been taken advantage of. The truth is, though, she still can’t parse her conflicting feelings on it, can’t separate the stinging betrayal in finding out from the pity that Alex had never wanted. Neither of which are desirable attitudes to have toward the situation.

Eventually Aaron runs out of things to say and they lay there for a while. Aaron looks up at the ceiling while Alex continues stroking her hair. After a while she stirs and hoists herself up with a grunt, and Aaron follows, gathering up her purse and slinging it over her shoulder.

Alex has taken off her jeans but left her hoodie on; Aaron gulps as her eyes skate down her thick thighs, but she doesn’t let them linger. She pads in her bare feet back to the bed and hops up on it. “Text me,” Alex says, and Aaron looks back at her as she slides her loafers on, her hand on the doorknob.

“It’s the same number.” Alex turns over and faces away from her, curling up on her side without pulling her covers up.

Aaron stands on the sidewalk, feeling cold, feeling empty. She checks her phone. It’s 2:11. She considers a cab, considers the subway, and then starts walking.


End file.
